BPI chairman Peter Jamieson said, “There will be no let-up in our fight against illegal file-sharing. We will do what it takes to defend our rights under the law."
Seventy-one of the lawsuits to date have been settled, with individuals paying up to £6,500 each, according to the BPI.
BPI General Counsel Roz Groome said, "There is no doubt that legal action is helping to contain the spread of illegal file-sharing, but there is sadly still no shortage of people who believe the law simply does not apply to them.”
Elsewhere, file-sharers in Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Hong Kong and Singapore were targeted for the first time as part of a global campaign against the practice.
According to the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, a new wave of 2,100 legal cases have been filed worldwide, taking the total number of non-US legal actions against uploaders to over 3,800 in 16 countries.
The US music industry has been running its own campaign since September 2003. According to the IFPI there have been 3590 US settlements to date, averaging several thousand US dollars each.
